The Art of Abduction
by LoriHuCalmia
Summary: Set just after "The Hounds of Baskerville." When the sole witness to a murder insults Anderson, makes Donovan cry, and corrects Sherlock, the consulting detective thinks he might have just discovered paradise. But when the ruthless killer targets him in an effort to evade capture, it's up to an ex-army doctor, a landlady, an an amnesia patient to bring him down.
1. A Study in Deductions

_This is an experiment in how well I can write for a story that will not contain slash, or romance of any sort (a first for me, a fandom I don't want to inject romance into!) and is largely based off the BBC show I've never laid eyes on save a few Tumblr posts, a trailer for Scandal in Belgravia, and numerous spoof videos._

_Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to any Sherlock Holmes adaptation, ever._

* * *

Chapter I: A Study in Deduction

_Young woman found next to Thames. Come quickly. –L_

From the kitchen, John could see Sherlock smile, then frown, then smile again. He wondered what aspects of the case the consulting detective got out of the apparently revealing text, but he wouldn't have understood it anyway.

"Oh, John, are you coming?" Sherlock asked, picking up his coat. "We've got a case."

"I've got a date," John complained. Louise Mortimer must have been impressed with his flirting. More likely, she had simply wanted to get away from Henry, even if she fully accepted that his actions were the result of a pressure-released, mind-altering aerosol spray.

"Fine," Sherlock said easily. "I'll go without you."

The unusually tall brunet had only just gotten in his taxi when a disgruntled ex-Army doctor climbed into the seat, phone still in hand.

"How did she take it?" Sherlock asked, amused.

John glared, and Sherlock's face softened for just a second before he started pointing out once again how much easier his own life was without bothering with notions as silly as sentiment. John tuned him out. He'd only hear "Punch me in the face" anyhow, and if he tried, that soft look would haunt him for ages. Luckily, he didn't have to fight his urges for very long. The taxi turned off the bridge and dropped them off. Sherlock immediately got out, leaving John to, once again, deal with the bill and hope fervently that he had enough. Once he figured he had, he walked up to Sherlock, who appeared to be done with his examination of the body and was heavily immersed in insulting Lestrade's intelligence.

"Where's the woman?" he asked.

"What are you talking about?" John asked, walking up. "She's right here," he gestured to the body in the red silk dress on the ground. Her fingernails had some lighter red material in them.

"Lestrade's seen enough corpses to stop imbuing them with unnecessary personality" Sherlock said with an arrogant sniff. "If that," he nudged the dead woman with his toe, "had been the only female besides Donovan here, he would have used the word 'body,' not 'woman,' and certainly not the adjective 'young' before it."

John nodded. "Right," he said, completely lost and no longer able to care about following Sherlock's logic.

"I had Donovan take her to the hospital," Lestrade said hesitantly. "She, er, well," he rubbed the back of his neck and looked at Anderson, who was carefully applying disinfectant to eight crescent-moon-shaped cuts on his arms. "He didn't like what she told him about his…infidelity." The detective inspector's tone left little doubt that this young woman, whoever she was, had used far less flattering words. John found himself unable to repress a smile.

Sherlock's expression made it clear that he wasn't even trying. "A woman after my own heart," he said delightedly.

"She has no ID and appears to have amnesia," Lestrade continued. "She initially believed she was seven and living in the state of Virginia in the 2000, but she said her name might be Grace."

"'Young woman' puts her between the ages of 16 and 24," Sherlock said.

To his credit, Lestrade didn't even pause to try to figure out how Sherlock had deduced that. "So, dead woman, then," Lestrade said. "No identification, only a poorly-done swastika tattoo on her wrist. We were thinking this could be the start of a rash of serial ethnic cleansing killings in the area."

"You'd be wrong," Sherlock said. "The swastika isn't backward. It's a Buddhist symbol of peace and wellbeing. The National Socialist Party or Germany turned it backwards and made it famous, but this symbol is the original. Given that the woman is of Chinese origin, it's far more likely that she's a Buddhist who had the symbol tattooed to her wrist at a young age, before the symbol was perverted into something completely opposite its original meaning. The woman is between the ages of thirty-five and forty-five, and married a widower who lives in a city in China."

"How can you possibly tell that the girl's her daughter?" Lestrade asked.

"Look at the material under her nails. They're the same material as the dead woman's dress; that is to say, silk, but the girl's is faded. She wore a hand-me-down dress that was once the same color as this woman's dress. So, clearly, daughter."

"And what about the, er, 'wife' part?" Lestrade asked.

"Oh, god, you can't do _anything_ without me, can you?" Sherlock drew himself up straighter like he always did when he was about to reveal something he believed was obvious. "Look at the dress; it's not handmade like it would be if she was from the country, but it's not mass produced like it would be if it were made here. The most likely conclusion is that it was made in an urban area near her home in China. Now, Lestrade, you said the girl was between the ages of 16 and 24. Either way, this woman would have been in her mid-twenties when she gave birth, which would be normal for the country, but we've just established that she lives in the city. The Chinese have imposed a one-child policy to combat overpopulation, and it's unlikely that anyone in the city would have children that young, knowing that law was in place. Therefore, she was not her husband's first wife. Also, the ring on her finger has been resized to fit a larger finger; the extra metal can be seen in the space between her ring and her index fingers."

Lestrade and John nodded, blinking in confusion and acceptance of his explanation.

"So, the only thing to do now is to go to the hospital and try to jog this girl's memories," Sherlock clapped his hands, apparently excited to meet someone who seemed to hate Anderson as much as he did.

"Um, Sherlock, she has amnesia," John said. "We might not be able to get her memories back, and awakening the trauma brought on by witnessing a crime-"

"John, when she awoke, she believed she was seven. No seven-year-old has the mental capacity to deduce that Anderson's cheating on his wife with Donovan, as obvious as it is, not even me. All this intelligence she developed later, and the fact that her reasoning's still intact and she hasn't fully regressed means that she's still got all this information buried somewhere," Sherlock said. "I've just got to figure out how to unlock the doors to her mind palace."

"Okay, okay, great," John nodded. "What do you want me to do?" he asked, hoping to be useful.

"I want you to keep Donovan busy enough for me to sneak in her hospital room," Sherlock answered.

"And why do you think I'll be able to do that?"

"Lestrade wouldn't have sent Donovan away from the crime scene unless something greatly upset her. She'll be flustered and you could easily keep her occupied while I question the girl," Sherlock said.

John frowned. "Sherlock, from what Lestrade's shown us, this girl's not in the best place, mentally. Are you sure you're the best person to talk to her?"

Sherlock only had to raise an eyebrow at John for the doctor to fall silent as they strode into the hospital.

"What are you two doing here?" Donovan's voice, harsher than usual, had an unusual rasp to it. "Molly's not allowed visitors."

When John looked at her face, it was a little puffy and red. Sherlock, unexpectedly, didn't smirk at her weakness, but he did look extremely (and inappropriately) excited. Donovan started to yell abuse at him, and John stepped in between them quickly, defending Sherlock as usual. Donovan predictably turned her attention to him, and Sherlock slipped into the hospital room before Donovan noticed. There was a _click_ as the door was locked, and Donovan gave a growl of frustration before burying her face in her hands, muttering rude words—directed at himself or his flatmate, John wasn't sure. He was sure, however, that she needed some comforting.

* * *

It was a relief to no longer have to hear Sergeant Sally Donovan's voice. It grated on his nerves on her best days, and when she gave into sentiment it was simply intolerable. Unfortunately, Sherlock Holmes was going to have to deal with it for a little longer.

"So, what are you doing here, then?"

He turned, expecting to see Donovan even though he knew she was outside with John. The voice was exactly like hers, save that they came out of a very pretty young woman sitting on a hospital bed, long untidy black hair sticking out everywhere and glasses askew on her nose. The eyes were dark, but there was a brightness behind them that Sherlock thrilled to think might match his own.

"Well?" the girl snarled in Donovan's tone, crossing her arms. Sherlock frowned; the voice was putting him off, and furthermore, she was impossible to read. It was like reading Donovan: the way she paced, the way she watched him like a hawk, the way she eagerly searched for answers.

No, wait, that wasn't Donovan. Sherlock paused, and started looking at the girl again. Her eyes seemed to have gotten brighter, missing nothing, remembering nothing.

"Sherlock Holmes," Sherlock stuck out his hand.

"Charlotte Hong," the girl replied, taking it and shaking with the same amount of vigor as Sherlock displayed. She frowned, and the handshake lagged to something slower, more relaxed. "That's not…that doesn't sound right."

"You identified yourself to Detective Inspector Greg Lestrade as Grace," Sherlock said. Judging by the minor return of Charlotte/Grace's own personality, she was careful, likely to consider all possible consequences before any action.

"Grace Lang," the girl nodded. "I remember. I don't know why I did that," she admitted.

Sherlock had an idea, and grinned widely as he leaned forward to whisper conspiratorially, "Don't worry about that old fart. If I had to talk to him, I'd lie, too."

Charlotte/Grace looked deeply uncomfortable, like she was hiding something, and Sherlock immediately smoothed the smile off his face. It was an uncomfortable expression; he was relieved to be rid of it. Charlotte/Grace looked more at ease as well. Hmm…interesting. The girl could feel his discomfort without even being aware of it.

There was a loud bang on the window, and Donovan and John's argument grew louder. Donovan referred to "Molly," whom Sherlock guessed was Charlotte/Grace. Whatever that meant, he hoped John was alright.

"He'll be okay," the girl said, still in Donovan's voice. "She's a police officer, a good person. She wouldn't hurt someone."

Sherlock snorted. The girl was naïve, that much was clear as well. The presence of a Sally turned the girl into a Molly, the presence of a Greg turned the girl into a Grace, and the presence of a genius turned the girl into a Charlotte. But each person had cracks of the girl's original personality.

"Shut up," the girl said unexpectedly, in a voice two octaves lower than her previous one.

Sherlock turned around, surprised. "I wasn't saying anything," he said, trying to sound guileless.

"You were thinking," Charlotte/Grace/Molly said in Sherlock's voice.

"I can't stop thinking," Sherlock said.

"My mind is racing," Charlotte/Grace/Molly said, still in Sherlock's voice.

"Mine, too," Sherlock said. "It's whirling round and round the garden."

"Like a teddy bear," Charlotte/Grace/Molly continued. Her hands reached for the morphine release button. Sherlock handed it to her.

"Around one question," Sherlock waited with bated breath. "Can you guess what it is?"

"What my voice sounds like." Charlotte/Grace/Molly sighed, pressing the button to release a dose. "I wish I could answer. I open my mouth to try to talk, and nothing comes out. I have to think about what voices sound like, and I just use the most recent one." She frowned. "Why did I press the button? I don't need morphine. I'm covered in blood, and none of it is from where I banged my head on the riverbank."

"Post-traumatic stress disorder," Sherlock said decidedly.

Charlotte/Grace/Molly turned to him, eyes shrewd. She continued playing with the morphine drip, fighting the urge to press the button again. "How do you know that?" she demanded.

Sherlock sniffed and shook his sleeves until they fell over his knuckles and made an effort to stop pacing quite so agitatedly. Just as he suspected, Charlotte/Grace/Molly stopped playing with the morphine drip. "I'm a genius, excellent at deduction," he said smugly. "Sudden loud noises alarm you, you shrink away from me, and you're eyeing the door to calculate how long it would take you to get out of the room should I prove to be unsafe."

"If you really were a genius," the girl's voice was different now, far too high-pitched to be mocking Sherlock, or even Sally, "you would know that you practice _abductive_ reasoning, not _deductive. _Really, you call yourself a rocket scientist?"

Sherlock frowned. "'Rocket scientist?'"

"Someone really smart and good with, like, machines and," the girl chocked.

Sherlock stopped. "Irrelevant," he said.

"Of course it is, you didn't know it," the girl said, this time in John's voice. "Oh, don't be so surprised," she said in Sally's derisive voice. "I could hear him arguing outside before he came in," she nodded toward the door, where John Watson was currently gaping at her.

"Right," John said. "Er, John Watson," he said, waving awkwardly.

"Jane Wang," the girl said in John's voice, waving back just as slowly. She waved faster as she frowned. "That's not my name either."

"I didn't think so," John said. "Donovan said your name was Molly."

"She said her name was Sally," Charlotte/Grace/Molly/Jane gave a growl of frustration remarkably similar to Sherlock's.

"Well, I think we've bothered her long enough," Sherlock said suddenly. "Let's go," he walked out of the room, John following in confusion after him.

"That girl just used my voice," he said, gesturing toward the hospital room.

"Brilliant de…abduction, John. Nothing gets past you, does it?" Sherlock said sarcastically. He shook his head. It didn't matter what that girl thought. It didn't matter at all.

* * *

_So, what do you think? A triumph? Or should I make a note here: huge failure?_


	2. The Gone Girl

_I couldn't think of a title that was relevant to the chapter with the word "blind" or "banker" in the title, so I settled for another alliteration instead. I hope you guys don't mind that. Or the fact that it's not Brit-picked._

_Disclaimer: Sherlock Holmes is now in the public domain, hence the large amount of derivative works. However, I would like to make it clear to the BBC (because I'm still not completely certain about copyright laws in the UK) that while I write this with the characters of _Sherlock_ in mind, I am making no claim to own those characters or that show._

* * *

Chapter II: The Gone Girl

"Well, how does she use my voice?" John was bewildered.

Sherlock whirled around and faced John. "She has the physique of a sixteen-year-old girl, but carries herself like one at least twenty-five. She spoke like you, me, Lestrade, and Donovan, meaning that she has a mental capacity equal to us, although in Donovan's case it's not very difficult. And, most importantly, she enjoys morphine only when I'm there. Diagnose her."

John felt a flash of fear. The second day he had met Sherlock, Lestrade had conducted a drugs bust on the flat and Sherlock had copped to being a former addict. But he had been able to force it out of his mind until this very moment, and he wondered if Sherlock was on his way to being an addict again. "So, what are you saying? She's an addict?"

"No. I lifted my sleeve when I went to shake her hand. She must have seen the track marks and concluded that I was at least a former addict. She has mirror syndrome and retrograde amnesia, caused by trauma, but not a physical one."

John froze. "You're saying that you think she watched her mother die?" he asked, feeling a pang at what the girl must have suffered. He'd seen one of his friends shot in front of him, and he couldn't eat for days after. Even now, the horror threatened to make him lose his lunch.

John didn't have long to feel sick, however, because a well-dressed figure holding an umbrella stood on the staircase in 221B and took up all of Sherlock's attention.

"Not interested," the consulting detective said before Mycroft could open his mouth.

"It concerns a case you've already taken," Mycroft said.

"I haven't taken any cases lately, unless my sleepwalking has returned," he said, walking out.

"Sleepwalking?" John was surprised. "Sherlock?" he turned back to Mycroft to ask.

Mycroft smiled. "Yes. Mummy used to wake up to a much younger Sherlock sitting on the couch eating with his eyes closed."

"Did he do that a lot?" John asked.

"Yes, of course. He once took a car and crashed-"

"Into a streetlamp?"

"No, into a residence building."

"I wasn't talking about Sherlock," John said, walking toward Sherlock, who was already on the other side of the street examining an empty car.

"Remotely controlled," Sherlock said, holding up what looked to be part of the car's radio. "A wire was disconnected from the antenna, and a different wire put in its place."

"And we can track it or something?" John asked.

"Phone Lestrade," Sherlock answered. "Tell him we have a case."

John sighed, but fished out his phone and dialed, but it cut off mid-ring and dissolved into static. He hung up and tried again, but he had no sooner pressed the first three digits than Mycroft snatched it out of his hand and turned it off.

"My phone," John stuck out his hand.

"My case," Mycroft answered smoothly, handing it back. "Of course, you and Sherlock should feel free to solve this one afterward."

"If this is revenge for not taking the oil drill case back in October-" John began hostilely.

"Really, John, you should know by now that I don't engage in activities as petty or useless as revenge," Mycroft smiled. "I prefer subtlety," he said. "But when one deals with Sherlock, subtlety tends to go straight over his head."

"I have no use for subtlety," Sherlock sniffed haughtily nearby.

"I think you'll find that people are more inclined to listen to you when you're not constantly telling them they're wrong," Mycroft said, inspecting his umbrella and looking generally anywhere but his brother.

"If they're wrong, they should know why so they can refrain from being so in the future."

"You will find it far easier to be right if you didn't rub other's face in it," Mycroft hissed.

"Easy is boring," Sherlock replied smugly, glad he had gotten Mycroft riled up.

The government official seemed to have realized this, as he immediately straightened up as if nothing had ever happened. "I see that you intend to continue on as always."

"Always is helpful," now Sherlock sounded like the one close to losing his temper as he popped open the trunk of the car. He sniffed the corpse. "Hmm, thirty-five, going by his bone structure; geneticist, judging by the care he took of his hands; recently fired, according to the strong smell of alcohol; no smells of decomposition yet, so he died within the last twelve hours." Sherlock was in the middle of flipping the body onto its back when unexpectedly paled and his eyes grew to the size of saucers.

"What?" John asked, walking forward. His mouth dropped open. "Oh, god."

The man's dead face looked like it could have belonged to Sherlock."

"Well, it seems that someone is trying to kill me, again," Sherlock said lightly after he saw John's expression. "Do we have a long-lost cousin you've never told me about?" he asked Mycroft jokingly.

Mycroft blinked himself back to earth. "Um," he cleared his throat. "No," he smiled. "Unless Mummy has been sadly mistaken on how many siblings we have, I doubt that this man is related to us."

Sherlock gave a terse nod and shut the trunk. He pulled out his own phone and gave it to John. "Call Molly. Tell her we'll be by to examine the body as soon as we have tea," he said.

John frowned. Sherlock was acting very oddly. Could he be frightened that he was next? John had seen the world's only consulting detective frightened once, and it was when he had nearly died beside a pool about three years ago. No, the expression on Sherlock's face was not fear. The ex-army doctor thought for a while before he could finally place Sherlock's expression with one he had worn before: concern, after he had ripped the bomb jacket off John.

So, Sherlock was concerned. But why, and what was that smell?

"Are you making tea?" John asked, shocked.

"Yes," Sherlock sounded like this was an everyday occurrence.

"You never make tea."

"That's not true," the taller man said. "I'm making tea now. Here, have some," Sherlock offered his flatmate a mug. "No drugs, I promise. And no eyeballs, I checked," he added when John hesitated.

John shuddered as he took a sip, remembering all too well the eyeball in his minestrone last Tuesday. He would have flung it at Sherlock's head if he weren't worried about breaking the bowl. "What are you so worried about?" John asked, putting the teacup down.

"Your tea is getting cold," Sherlock answered without answering.

"Yes, and you're still not answering my question," John replied.

Sherlock looked at John with eyes so brilliant John was, for a moment, breathless. "I saw the way you looked at the body," he answered finally. "I don't want you present at the autopsy because you'll view the body as mine."

"Sherlock, if somebody's out there trying to kill people who look like you, I want to know as much as I can about him so I can."

"John is a soldier, Sherlock. You can stop treating him as if he were more breakable than that cup you're holding," Mycroft nodded to the teacup in Sherlock's hands.

"Sod off, Mycroft. Even the finest of china can be replaced," Sherlock said before taking a sip of tea and making a face. Muttering something about pencil shavings, he made to dump the tea into the sink when Mycroft smirked.

"Remembering the incident in Milvertons' class now, are we?" Mycroft asked.

Sherlock froze, then turned around to glare at Mycroft. "I've deleted it," he growled through teeth gritted so tightly John vaguely wondered if his flatmate was about to crack a tooth.

"And yet you still react so defensively when it is brought up," John wanted to tell Mycroft to shut up. Couldn't he see that Sherlock was frozen in…wait, why was the man frozen, anyway?

"Oh!" Sherlock gasped, putting the teacup down with the expression of one in love. "Of course, of course! She was with her mother when she died, and either Mummy or the killer told her that if her voice was heard, she would die. Oh, self-preservation, even after the fact!"

"Then why would she delete it?" John asked. "If, you know, it was so important."

"She still saw her mother shot, John. Watching a parent die before your eyes is fairly traumatic," Sherlock was already putting on his coat.

"Where are you going?" John demanded when the consulting detective was already halfway down the stairs.

Scotland Yard. I need to know who the girl was, and what her mother sounded like!" by the end of the sentence, Sherlock had already flagged down a cab.

"Hold on one second," John called. "I'm coming with you! I've just got to get my coat first!" He was too preoccupied with slowing down Sherlock's words to a speed he could understand them to notice the stricken expression on Mycroft's face.

* * *

"I don't know what you're talking about!"

"Don't lie!"

The buzz of electricity was heard momentarily before it was covered up by a pained scream.

"Tell me what you did!"

"I raped her, alright? I raped Lola! I raped my wife!"

"That's not what I'm talking about, and your wife's name is Elizabeth."

"No, no, that's a lie. I've never met anyone named Elizabeth my entire life!"

The buzz of electricity was heard momentarily before it was covered up by a pained scream.

* * *

"Lin Jin…Bai," said Lestrade with difficulty. "She lives in New York with her husband, Qi…Jiang Bai, who had a 16-year-old daughter named…Mei…Jing Bai from a previous marriage."

"Hmm," Sherlock murmured, not paying attention as usual.

"We have the girl's real name, I'm taking a blimp ride tomorrow, and we're checking the woman's apartment," Lestrade said.

"Take pictures of the view. I believe John will find them entertaining," Sherlock said.

Lestrade smiled to himself.

"And while you're at it, gather tapes of their family vacations, birthday parties, holiday celebrations, things where the entire family would have spoken in the last year," Sherlock added.

"That's all evidence," Lestrade shook his head.

"And I can do more with it than the rest of your department combined," Sherlock said.

Lestrade sighed. "Yes, I get it, your intellect far outweighs my own."

Sherlock's extended silence made Lestrade turn around. The consulting detective wore the most peculiar expression as he said, in the quietest tone the detective inspector had ever heard, "I wasn't including you in that scenario." Then he disappeared, leaving Lestrade feeling like he had just been paid a great compliment.

Well, seeing as it came from Sherlock, it probably was.

* * *

Molly Hooper was not a weak woman.

Sure, she dressed like Dolores Umbridge (and decorated like her, too, to be completely honest), gave a pound to every peddler on the street on her way to and from work, and would sooner stop buying lipstick than say a bad word to anyone. But she was not easily fazed. After all, she did postmortems.

But when she flipped over the sheet and found Sherlock's glassy, dead eyes staring up at her again, she upended a tray of expensive equipment and screamed so loudly that a few medical students next door had burst in wielding various bone saws. At first, they had all laughed at her, bringing her nearly to tears with the extra negative emotion.

Then Mike Stamford had seen Paul Marshall's face and ordered everyone out.

* * *

"There's been another one," John said, hanging up on Molly.

"Coincidence," Sherlock said dismissively.

"One person with your exact face crashing in front of your house being a coincidence is a big enough stretch. Two is someone trying to kill anyone who looks like you."

"Well, he's not doing a very good job," Sherlock replied. "Otherwise, it would be obvious that I am not a confectioner, or a geneticist. I also have far more sense than to sport that sort of mustache."

"What?" John was only thirty-eight, but he was sure his hearing couldn't be that bad. He stuck a finger in his ear; he had just heard Sherlock make a joke.

"I did, John," Sherlock said, looking out the window of the cab.

"How did you know I was...is it going to go right over my head?"

"You're reflected off the window," Sherlock answered.

John blushed, feeling very stupid indeed, until Sherlock shot him a look of irritation softened by concern, The cab, luckily, chose this moment to stop in front of the hospital and spare John the awkwardness of having to thank Sherlock for something the man would go to his grave denying.

Sherlock took the television in Lestrade's office out of the trunk of the car.

"How long do you think it's going to take for Lestrade to realize that's missing?" John asked, having gotten used to Sherlock's theft of Lestrade's police equipment. The nurse with dark red hair and bright green eyes and wheeling a patient down the hall, on the other hand, looked nervous.

"Until we call him into the hospital room and he sees it," Sherlock said smugly.

That moment turned out to be sooner than any of them thought, as the hospital room was empty, as if no one had ever occupied it, save a single note bearing a girl's handwriting.

_I'm sorry, but I couldn't let him take Mary away again._

* * *

_I must admit, I'm a little worried about moving the plot along too quickly, but since I only have six titles to work with, unless this story takes WAY longer than planned, I'm going to have to wrap this up quickly, if you can't already tell who the villains in this story are._


End file.
